Danny Kent’s impressive start to the 2024 Bennetts British Superbike Championship season continued at Oulton Park at the weekend with the McAMS Racing Yamaha rider taking three top six finishes.
Two of those were a brace of fourth places, after taking sixth in race one, and followed on from the superb start at the opening round at Navarra where he finished on the podium in two of the three races. Although unable to replicate those rostrum appearances, he performed better than he’d ever done before at Oulton and was unlucky to miss out on a podium in the final race having occupied third place for much of the race distance.
"Coming into this weekend, if you’d have offered me two fourth-place finishes and a sixth then I would’ve bitten your hand off,” he said. “Oulton Park has always been a track that I’ve struggled at, but the team worked so well to give me a package that I could improve on.”
“Obviously, I expect better results than sixth place, which was where I finished in race one, but honestly, the team and I have worked mega this weekend and I learnt a lot from that race which enabled me to improve on Monday.”
That opening race saw him almost six seconds adrift of race winner Glenn Irwin but the improvements were clear to see on Monday when he took fourth in both the Sprint race and in the final race of the weekend.
Just over half second behind Irwin in the Sprint race, he then slotted into third in the final race of the weekend and looked comfortable behind the Ducati pair of Irwin and Christian Iddon. However, having ran in third for 17 and half laps, Ryan Vickers overhauled him at the Hizzy’s chicane on the final lap and he had to settle for fourth once more.
Nevertheless, the strong haul of points see him occupy fourth place in the championship table after the first two rounds, just ten points behind new leader Irwin.
“I’m disappointed to miss out on a podium so close to the end of the race, but we approach the next round of the season with many positives to take with us,” he said. “We gathered up three solid sets of results, so I’m excited to carry that momentum across to round three at Donington Park.”
“My mindset moving forward is to come to every round, aim to fight for podiums and to achieve my career-first BSB win. There’s no better place to do that than at Donington. It’s a track that suits my style a lot and a track that also plays to the strengths of the R1. I can’t wait to get there."
